Facebook Parse: Push Notifications & Analytics

Facebook's acquisition of Parse gives the social giant a big mobile boost by making it easier for developers to create apps for the Facebook platform. In a three-part series, we take a deep dive into Parse.

Introduction

In our first article we covered what Parse is, its benefits and how to set up your account. We even got started on our Parse sample application by populating the Parse database. The second article guided you through integrating Parse into an existing app, including making appropriate changes.

In our final installment, we will learn about Parse push notifications, as well as take a look at Parse Analytics.

Introduction to Push Notifications

Push notifications provide an excellent and rich channel of engagement and interaction with your app’s users, allowing for real-time messaging and information delivery as well as promotions.

Parse Push delivers a simple, convenient and feature-rich method to send intelligent push notifications, segmented according to your marketing campaign needs. While we are focusing solely on iOS, Parse’s Push engine works cross-platform, from iOS to Android and even Windows Phones.

Above: Targeted campaigns, segmented by various channels and user groups in Parse Push.

Composing push notifications is one of the most impressive features of Parse Push. You can use the Web console or client-side SDK or trigger notifications through the Rest API. You can even schedule notifications remotely and place them in queues, to be triggered in symphony with your campaigns.

Urban Airship offers quite an elaborate set of engagement products, such as iBeacon targeting and Apple Pay/Google Wallet integration, but what you are getting with Parse Push is an integrated ecosystem leveraging the other areas we covered, such as Push Core and Push Analytics.

Creating your own custom push notification server requires infrastructure investment and time, whereas Parse Push allows for an MVP demonstration right out of the box.